Halo Infinite News

Back at the very tail end of July a great many Halo Insiders joined us in our tech preview – the very first public test for Halo Infinite. That weekend brought us laughs, memories, and perhaps most of all, data and feedback from you, our community.

That’s why this weekend and next (September 23-26 and September 30 - October 3) we’re going to be running two more multiplayer tech previews. Our primary focus during this tech preview is to test our backend systems and online services at scale ahead of launch. Our secondary goals will be to receive feedback and find additional bugs around the content in the flight.

Fragmentation, a Big Team Battle map, features stunning Forerunner architecture [Click here to get the image in 4K]

Over the next two weekends there will be a fair amount for all of you to dig into, so we wanted to take a chance to collect all the information we could in one place, so that you know what’s going to be included in this preview and when you can get involved.

But, if you’re short on time and only want the top-level details, here’s the most salient points:

• Am I Invited?: For your invite information, be sure to check Halo Waypoint vNext or your Private Messages starting tomorrow evening.
• Stream approved: Everything you can access via normal means can be shared with your friends and followers. Content creators, have a great time out there!
• Goal oriented: If this is your first time joining us, we want to thank you for participating in a process we call flighting. For more information on our goals check here, and for outcomes from the previous tech preview be sure to check here.
• Two weekends: We’re excited to be running for two weekends, but please note that there are focused play sessions to help stress our services.
  • Weekend 1: (September 24-26)
    • Friday, September 24 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
    • Saturday, September 25 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
    • Sunday, September 26 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
  • Weekend 2 (October 1-3)
    • Friday, October 1 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
    • Saturday, October 2 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
    • Sunday, October 3 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT

The schedule of the Multiplayer Tech Preview

While flight access is open, the Academy experiences will still be fully available to Halo Insiders. So, if you want to warm up for the next play session in the Weapon Drills or Training Mode, you’ll be free to do so.

[h3]TECHNICAL PREVIEW GOALS[/h3]
Halo Infinite’s release date might seem distant, but December will arrive before we know it. Over the course of the next two weekends testing the game’s services at scale will be critical to us, so we’re thankful that so many of you will be able to join in on the action. If you ended up not registering as a Halo Insider in time, don’t worry. There’s still a chance you can make our second weekend.

Next week, we plan on expanding the audience through a few methods – including potentially allowing Halo Insiders to invite a friend – so that we can push the servers to their limit. We'll have more to share about this audience expansion next week. We're excited to host our largest flighting audience to date, and we’re eager to learn as much as we possibly can.

Additionally, as a thank you for helping test our services, players who complete 10 matches during the second weekend (October 1-3) will be granted a special emblem for their Spartans when the game launches this December.

Overall, our goals for these technical preview weekends can be distilled down to the following three areas:

• Testing the services behind Halo Infinite at large scale
• Gathering real world data about PC hardware configurations
• Collecting community feedback and reports

As always, if you want to learn more about our entire flighting process, be sure to check out July 2021’s Inside Infinite. Now, let’s take a closer look at all of the content you’ll be able to play during these technical previews.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]TRAINING MODE[/h3]
A new addition to the action, and a first for the Halo franchise, will be Training Mode. In Training Mode, you can load into a solo sparring session against Bots on the Arena map of your choice.

To help you focus on what you’d like to improve, you can customize the following options on the fly, mid-match:

• Bot Difficulty
• Number of Friendly Bots
• Number of Enemy Bots
• Weapons (Primary & Secondary)
• Grenades (Primary & Secondary)
• Equipment
• Reveal Enemy Location
• Playfighting
• Infinite Ammo
• Deathless

Over the course of your training adventures, you’ll be able to choose from all Arena maps available in the build as they arrive. So, when Behemoth is be added to the Preview on Sunday, you’ll be able to dive in.

[h3]WEAPON DRILLS[/h3]
The ‘how’ is often just as, if not more important, than the ‘what.’ For those of you that joined us in the last tech preview, you’re likely familiar with the races for top scores with the S7 Sniper Weapon Drills all over Twitter. We’re extremely excited to see more of you enter the fray and push those scores as high as they can go.

Of course, you can take the time to learn the new weapons at your disposal, so you can come up with ideas of just how you’re going to put them all to use to maximize the number of Spartans you slay in any given round.

This time around, you’ll have access to the following Weapon Drills:

• MA40 AR
• BR75
• MK50 Sidekick
• CQS48 Bulldog
• Needler
• VK78 Commando
• S7 Sniper
• Plasma Pistol
• Pulse Carbine
• Ravager
• Heatwave
• Skewer
• Shock Rifle

Behemoth, an Arena map, is sure to be filled with vehicular action [Click here to get the image in 4K]

[h3]BOT ARENA[/h3]
In our last tech preview, you got to go head-to-head with our Bots for the very first time. Unforgiving. Relentless. And steady-handed with a grenade. Over the course of that flight, we received tons of data and feedback alike that’s already helped us make improvements to our Bot behavior – from movement, to combat decisions. That said though, our Bots are still learning, and for now, they have an aversion from jumping in vehicles. We've all seen how good they are on foot already. We want them to be

Welcome, one and all, to our latest edition of Inside Infinite!

Every month we sit down with the teams hard at work on Halo Infinite to learn more about contributions to the next chapter of Halo, gain insight about their process, and understand their goals on the road to our December 8 launch.

In this edition we’re spending a bit more time with the Multiplayer Team. Last month, we had a chance to chat with them about the ins-and-outs of the very first Halo Infinite Tech Preview, learned about their process when developing the next chapter of multiplayer Halo, and of course - to hear about the design pillars that bring it all together.

Before you carry on, if you find yourself interested in learning more about other disciplines and areas of Halo Infinite be sure to check out our previous editions, which at this point cover a wide variety of topics:

• December 2020 – Art, Graphics, and Live
• January 2021 – Sandbox
• February 2021 – Campaign
• March 2021 – Audio
• April 2021 – PC
• June 2021 – Live and Waypoint vNext
• July 2021 – Flighting
• August 2021 – Multiplayer and Bots

In this edition we’re spending a bit more time with the Multiplayer Team. Last month, we had a chance to chat with them about the ins-and-outs of the very first Halo Infinite Tech Preview, this month we’re preparing for the upcoming Multiplayer Tech Preview – which will make available both the Arena (4v4) and Big Team Battle (12v12), bringing brand new ways for players to dive in and check out the next chapter of multiplayer Halo. To learn more about what’s going to be included and how the devs put it all together, we sat down with the Multiplayer Team to get some of the finer details on what their goals were through development, and what they’re most excited for you to play.

Then, we hang out with the Multiplayer Team for just a bit longer to hear more about the Academy, the experiences it offers, and the goals that the team had for players as they set foot in the classroom for the very first time.

Last but not least, we get a recap on the Challenge and Progression systems in Halo Infinite, to learn more about what the ways you’ll be building up your Spartan when the game launches on December 8.
Now, it’s time for the fun stuff. 

[h2]BTB FOR YOU AND ME[/h2]
When crafting the next chapter of Halo multiplayer, no stone can go unturned – digital, physical, or otherwise. When we talked to the Multiplayer Team last month, we heard some of their initial thoughts on what they most wanted to accomplish when creating Halo Infinite’s free-to-play multiplayer experience, from the Academy all the way to the Arena.

Now, with Big Team Battle on the menu for the upcoming Multiplayer Tech Preview, we wanted to take another opportunity to sit down with them to learn more about what’s happened since our very first Tech Preview, along with some first sets of intel about what went into creating the next version of Big Team Battle.

A Spartan flees with opposing team's flag in a round of Big Team Battle. [For the above image in full res, click here.]

So, sit back, relax, and enjoy as we sit down to hear more from Multiplayer Associate Creative Director Tom French, Lead Multiplayer Designer Andrew Witts, Senior Multiplayer Designer Fernando Reyes Medina, Senior Multiplayer Designer Patrick Wren, Lead Multiplayer Level Designer Cayle George, Multiplayer Bots Designer Sara Stern, and Senior Multiplayer Designer David Ellis. (If you recognize any of those names, chances are good you remember them from August’s Inside Infinite!)

As we’ve discussed a few times before, Halo Infinite is going to be a live game. When creating the multiplayer experiences for Halo Infinite (maps, modes, Academy, Bots, etc.), how do you prepare for an evolving sandbox?

Tom French: Every map and mode combination is really the sum of its parts all playing together in concert. Some of our systems like our Weapon Racks are purpose built to enable us to inject new toys into Quickplay and BTB maps quickly. Other areas like Ranked require more scrutiny which usually begins with our team taking passes on the level placements and then begins the process of discussion and debate over each one to make sure it’s balanced into the environment. Even after we launch, we’ll continue to learn and see what the community is and isn’t excited about and continue to massage everything we do, refining and refreshing the game over time.

Andrew Witts: The main problem we knew we had to solve was - how do we add new sandbox items to our gameplay experiences without creating friction among the player base? In previous Halo games, if you wanted to play the new content then you had to wait for a specific map to appear in the matchmaking queue or hope that it was not vetoed by other players in the lobby. We wanted to build systems that could receive new sandbox toys and populate across the game vs. just in certain maps. We invested so much into the Item Spawner system that players see with weapon racks, equipment pads, grenade pads, and vehicle pads so that we could push a new weapon, equipment, grenade or vehicle into the entire experience. That’s not to say that we won’t put all changes through their paces. We want to make sure we add new sandbox items in a way that generates positive gameplay experiences for our players.

David Ellis: One of the things I learned from working on post-launch content for Halo 4 and 5 was no matter how much you think you know how the community will react to a feature or mode, it’s always critical to ensure you schedule out time to read and respond to that feedback. We’re already talking about future opportunities to go after with Halo Infinite, but as with any live game the further you travel out on a content calendar the greater the flexibility you want to allow for the studio and the community to find the fun together as Infinite grows.

How often do you work with the Live Team in your process? What parts of the free-to-play multiplayer do you often work on in tandem?

Andrew Witts: We work alongside them all the time. I have a sync with the Live Design Team every Monday where we share what we are up to and the challenges we are facing in creating content for our players... but we also geek out about each other’s ideas for Halo and where we want to go next. On a game like this, it is imperative for Live and MP’s features to mesh well together.

Tom French: It’s important for our teams to be able to work in partnership effectively because our work is directly intertwined together. For us to succeed, we need them to succeed, and vice-versa. This means we’re regularly syncing with them to make sure our features are supporting their progression needs and cosmetics are working in harmony with the combat dance demands of the modes and Sandbox.

When approaching Halo Infinite’s version of Big Team Battle, what were some of your most crucial design pillars?

Andrew Witts: The team created the pillars for Big Team Battle after a long meeting where we invited each MP team member to share their favorite moments from past BTB experiences. After doing that we bucketed all those experiences which ultimately became our design pillars:

• Embrace the Spartan Battle Fantasy – We want players to really feel like they are within a Spartan unit pushing through the battlefield and capturing objectives as a team. That’s why we’ve invested in things like Pelican Drops, Commander mode VO, Weapon Pods falling from the sky to resupply the field and a few more dynamic elements – we wanted it to feel like an active battle inside the Halo universe. Additionally, we wanted maps to feel like they were a part of an iconic battle within the Halo universe.

• Empower Player Types to Thrive – There are many different types of players in the Halo ecosystem. Some players are pilots, others are slayers or objective hunters, but we wanted all of them to work together in this BTB experience. Fernando has a fantastic phrase that sums up this pillar well: Make sure everyone can feel like a hero in any match.

• Unleash the Halo Infinite Sandbox – This pillar kind of speaks for itself. We felt like the “big” in BTB was not just the number of players in the match or the size of the maps but the number of options at players’ disposal. All the toys are available in this space for maximum fun. 

When the team set out to design the new Big Team Battle experience for Halo Infinite, how did you approach drawing inspiration from the past vs. injecting something new? Were there specific elements you knew HAD to be there from the past?

Tom French: A lot of the discussion came from taking what we loved of our favorite past BTB experiences, targeting a set of modes that aligned with our goals, and figuring out any new twists that would partner with the gameplay to give us our own stamp on a fan favorite.

Andrew Witts: When starting to develop BTB, we started by having the Multiplayer Team share memorable stories that they have had in past Big Team experiences in Halo. We talked a lot about how those stories made us feel as players. What more did we want from those stories?  What more would we want out of the BTB experience that would make those stories even better? These are all the questions we asked each other to come up with the feature list for BTB. So did we didn’t key into specific features as much as we tried to key into experiences that were possible in BTBs of the past.

As you set out to evolve Big Team Battle, what aspects did you specifically see as areas to improve upon and make ‘new’?

Fernando Reyes Medina: We are all really big fans of legacy BTB so we were careful not to mess with what isn’t broken. We wanted a BTB experience that feels classic and modern at the same time. An opportunity I saw to improve Classic BTB was to make sure that the mode rules and balance consider the increased player count and the amazing new maps that level designers made for Halo Infinite. This allowed us to create an exciting pace throughout a BTB match, which, combined with the awesome new toys in our sandbox, makes the perfect stage so players can play out memorable moments with their friends.   

Patrick Wren: We took a similar philosophy of how we approached BTB as we did with Arena, but turned it up to 11. There is the core experience of spawning at your base, jumping into vehicles, and going out into the world, but we looked at how we could spice it up. Tanks for example, especially the Scorpion, are extremely powerful vehicles that would tend to dominate matches in previous Halo games. We looked at how we could make them an amazing moment in a match that really punctuates their power.


"FLAG TAKEN. FLAG DROPPED. FLAG TAKEN." [For the above image in full res, click here.] 

How did the team arrive at the design for an expanded 12 vs 12 player count?

Andrew Witts: The short answer from me is that we wanted this to feel like a bigger “Big Team” experience and adding 4 players to each team seemed like a natural path to iterate towards. More players means more player interactions which we felt was a net positive to a lot of the strengths of BTB.

Fernando Reyes Medina: The more the merrier! Having said that, we found that 12v12 player count maintains that classic BTB pacing that we all love while increasing the possibility for fun player engagements in all parts of the map. It also contributes towards our first pillar: embracing the Spartan Battle Fantasy. No matter what you are doing in a BTB match you will see awesome moments happening around you. 

Patrick Wren: Having worked on Halo 5’s Warzone, it was important to me that we didn’t go smaller than that. There was a lot of learning we could bring forward to create a bigger battlefield for players in BTB. It would feel weird if we lowered our player count back down after that. I wanted to make sure BTB in Halo Infinite started out with a bang and that we scope to make classic Halo modes and new Halo modes better than ever.

What types of new design challenges come with increasing the player count by 50%? And, how did the team attack these challenges?

Andrew Witts: I think one of the biggest challenges has been around game mode pacing. What I mean by pacing is the feeling of escalation or urgency in a match. Ideally you want to start a match with excitement and over time that turns into increased tension so that at match end you feel fulfilled/jubilant as a player when the conclusion is reached, and one team is victorious. Pacing can be a big challenge when you increase the number of players. A lot of the stress of providing good pacing falls on the map and game modes and I think our teams have done a fantastic job working together to crack this puzzle.

When considering Halo Infinite’s maps, what’s the approach from a design standpoint? Are there major tenants you adhere to based on the size or mode being played on the map?

Cayle George: We strive to build exciting levels that offer unique combat experiences within our suite of gameplay spaces. Our aim is to create maps that enable and challenge the variety of play styles within Infinite's multiplayer. While we want each level to offer a different flavor of the game, we simultaneously are looking to retain the core combat experience and sandbox interactions. It’s a tricky balance and one we are constantly pushing to polish. There are so many cool types of equipment and weapons that it’s exciting to find the perfect spaces for them to thrive.

We keep an open mind to variety in our suite of levels. We don’t feel that gameplay spaces are a one-type-fits-all when it relates to size, pacing, modes or engagement types. We have some good starting metrics, sure, but we find that playtesting and feedback usually lead us in directions that do not always fit the mold. For example, while we aim to find the right balance of speed and rotational gameplay in a Strongholds map for example, we have found that balance may be quite different depending on the unique flavor of the gameplay space.

The Banished Shock Rifle will be up for grabs this weekend in Halo Infinite's Multiplayer Tech Preview. [For the above image in full res, click here.]

How does Halo Infinite’s new Equipment factor into BTB?

Andrew Witts: Similar to how Arena is structured, there are equipment spawners all around our BTB maps. The biggest difference in BTB is the amount of equipment charges that you receive per pick up. When you pick up equipment in BTB, you receive up to 5 uses of it. The reason we made this change is because we felt that increasing the frequency of the equipment verbs, players would be able to see more systemic outcomes of the sandbox more often. We felt it tied very well to our “sandbox unleashed” design pillar and our playtests have been validating this design choice.

Grounding Multiplayer, and BTB in particular, more in the fiction of the Halo universe is something we’ve heard the team mention in the past. Why was this a goal for the team?

Andrew Witts: Grounding MP was a goal that stemmed from Tom’s creative pillar of “you are your Spartan in the Halo universe”. The team loved this pillar and we felt that we needed our designs to own up to his direction. We’ve talked in previous Inside Infinite’s about how we wanted MP to be soaked with “Halo feels” when designing our systems, maps, and modes and it is mainly in service to this creative direction. As a team, we felt that if players are building their own Spartan story, then they need to feel like they are inside the Halo universe when playing our multiplayer experiences. We felt that the best way to immerse you in the universe of the franchise was to take some of the most memorable moments and put them front and center in the gameplay loops of MP.

What is it about Big Team Battle in particular that has made it such a longstanding, resonate favorite amongst the Halo community?

Andrew Witts: I think Big Team Battle is such a favorite in the Halo community because it puts the Halo sandbox on display in such an extravagant way. There are always so many toys in play that you can’t help but feel the rush of sniping from your base and then being a gunner on the back of a Warthog a few seconds later. I think the Team vs. Team fantasy of Big Team Battle is important to the experience. Sieging an enemy team’s base with multiple vehicles full of players is such a memorable thing in Halo. I fondly think back to my days of playing H2/H3 and being in the passenger seat of a Warthog as its flying over the middle hill of Coagulation and I'm just playing the Halo theme in my head the whole time with a big smile on my face.

BTB isn’t just more players – it also features some new modes and mechanics. Can you speak a bit about the gameplay experiences within BTB?

Fernando Reyes Medina: We designed Halo Infinite BTB modes from the ground up to encourage teamwork and support different player archetypes. Whether you are an incredible sniper, a skillful warthog driver, or a stealthy flag runner, you can contribute meaningfully to the outcome of any match. Across both classic modes like CTF and Slayer and brand-new modes like Total Control, the BTB experiences should feel fresh and iconic at the same time.

Patrick Wren: We wanted each mode to have a different life to it to help spotlight those different player types. BTB is a place we want as many different players as possible to come in and have a good time. We also wanted each match to feel fresh. That’s why we invested so heavily in systems that changed up each match. In one map we even have some new ways for players to get a cache of power by interacting with the map a whole new way with their Personal AI.

A key exciting element to BTB is the inclusion of iconic vehicles. How does your design approach account for the huge impact vehicles – both ground and air – have in this mode?

Patrick Wren: This is where Halo vehicles shine! We looked at vehicles in BTB in a few different ways. First what is the combo of map and vehicles that are always there. When players spawn into the map, they will always have a place to go hop in a vehicle just like always. We also wanted a way to escalate the experience over time. As Pelicans drop in vehicles, they will at first start dropping in your standard ground vehicles, but as the match goes on, they will start dropping in more powerful vehicles, air vehicles, and eventually tanks. We wanted the more powerful vehicles in the sandbox to really feel special and create a moment in the game that can change the flow depending on what vehicle is brought in.

The venerable Warthog. A trusty friend and a terrifying foe on any battlefield.[For the above image in full res, click here.]

What’s your personal favorite BTB memory from the Halo franchise?

Andrew Witts: If you asked me two years ago, I’d tell you about the rest of that match on Coagulation that I hinted at in the previous question, but I’ve played Halo Infinite’s BTB and most of my favorite stories are from this game. One of those stories involves me driving a chopper through a grav-cannon to splatter two enemies, exiting the vehicle and grapple-jacking an enemy Wasp that is chasing a friendly Razorback that’s escorting our team’s flag carrier back to base to score. It was the best, haha. 

Patrick Wren: There is always a moment from a Halo 2 LAN party that comes to mind on Coagulation where I am in the middle of the map on the hill by the cave. There is an enemy Scorpion about to shoot me and a rocket launcher on the ground. I run and hold X to try and pick it up, hoping I can shoot it in time, but in the chaos their teammate in a Banshee tries to splatter me so I highjack instead as the Scorpion shoots and I fly away to safety. With Halo Infinite BTB, there are just so many moments like that and more opportunities. One of my favorites is getting into a full Razorback while playing [REDACTED], driving full speed to the objective as the other team does the same. I had picked up a Repulsor on the way and jumped out to throw the enemy Razorback into disarray as my team used that moment to secure the objective and get out.

Fernando Reyes Medina: It’s funny, I feel exactly like Andrew on this one. I have so many fond memories of playing H3 BTB in LAN parties back in the day, but playtesting Infinite's BTB has created so many new core memories! Probably my favorite one was in one of our last CTF playtests. We were tied 2-2 and there was one minute left in the match. I love being a sneaky flag carrier so I knew it was my time! I snuck into the enemy’s base, got a double kill noob-comboing them (no shame, haha) and nabbed the flag. I had no teammates around so I had to hide with the flag in a little corner, hoping someone would get the hint that I needed a driver. A teammate got the memo and picked me up in a Mongoose, but just as we started the drive back, we got chased down by an enemy’s Wasp. With 5 seconds in the clock, I managed to get the flag capture and win the match for our team! I never felt so cool in my life before!

Tom French: My old favorite BTB memory was more of a development memory at the end of H4 when we would play endless (timeless/scoreless) games all day long while waiting for new bugs to trickle in. I love driving the Warthog and had countless runs trying to jump a squad full of teammates into the front of the enemy bases on Ragnarok to pull the flag and then launch the crew in the hog out of the base for a run back to home. I remember giggling all day long doing that. But like everyone else, Infinite BTB continues to give me amazing “water cooler” moments and playtests are always filled with people yelling and cheering as we play the game. I can’t wait to keep having these kinds of crazy moments with the community in this upcoming flight and when we release!

What else would you like our community to know about Big Team Battle in Halo Infinite?

Andrew Witts: We are super excited for you all to get in and play this experience and give us feedback. We’ve had a blast making BTB what it is today...and we’re just getting started.

Patrick Wren: We worked hard to make sure we made the classic experience shine with improvements from what players expect of a game in 2021. From gameplay experience for how players get Sandbox items, to more flavor of how the world reacts to when a team scores or driving by wildlife that scurries out of the way, this is BTB at its most alive with players laughing and screaming at each other.

Fernando Reyes Medina: When I play BTB, I feel like I am at home because I get to experience everything I love about Halo in a single match. I hope you all feel the same way, and I can’t wait to see all the amazing moments and memories that you will create playing BTB!

Thank you for taking the time to talk through Halo Infinite’s BTB with us! (But, Multiplayer Team, we’re not quite done with you yet.) 

During the Tech Preview a great many Halo Insiders got the chance to go hands-on with the game, and the Academy for the very first time. We took the chance to ask our friends on the Multiplayer Team a bit more about the goals for this experience, and the design pillars that pulled it all together.

 
[h2]PENCILS DOWN, MA40’S UP[/h2]
Halo’s 20-year history spans generations of consoles and players alike. When setting out to create Halo Infinite’s Academy, they Multiplayer Team knew that granting grizzled veterans and freshly enlisted free-to-play Spartans a chance to tool around with their favorite weapons was incredibly important. But, so was doling out some knowledge – be it terminology, tactics, or anything in between.

To learn more about how they accomplished this, and what their goals were, we sat down with a few members of the Multiplayer Team that are responsible for the Academy experience, to find out just what they had in mind for Spartans of all skill levels.

What are the goals and design pillars for Academy?

Tom French: With Infinite’s multiplayer being free, the Academy was born out of the necessity support an evergreen place for new players join the fight and returning players to be able slide back into each season by having ways to warm up with the game and learn the new toys. This became the core driver for the Academy features.

• Give players ways to learn about maps and systems without the fear of being shot in the face by players – Players desires to play a multiplayer experience is often at odds with how good the community becomes at the game. Even dipping one’s virtual toes into matchmaking brings a lot of anxieties to new players trying to get into the game once the game has been released. Academy gives multiple outlets for players to better prepare themselves and even fall back into if they need more practice.

• Provide tools to learn core mechanics and provide pathways to mastery through crafted fun, replayable bite-sized experiences – Learning often comes from repetition on a smaller problem set and this is a game, so learning needs to be fun to compel players to want to learn more. Short burst experience let players try things and try them again to see how they improve themselves in a specific area.

• Give context for the MP Spartan within the greater Halo canon – As we’ve mentioned before, this concept is part of our core pillars for Infinite MP, but the Academy, and more specifically the Tutorial, is where this journey begins. To the initiated, Spartans are cool, but what about new players? The question became, “how do we show everyone how cool Spartans are,” and, in particular the player Spartan, are important in the larger Halo universe as well as Master Chief. On top of that, for fans of Halo it is intended to strengthen their love of their Spartan without interfering with the gameplay they already know and love.

Lumu, a Personal AI in Halo Infinite, is going to have a lot to comment on this weekend. [For the above image in full res, click here.]

When building an Academy experience that met the goals above, how did the team arrive at the three experiences; Tutorial, Weapon Drills, and Training Mode?

Tom French: It’s funny how sometimes real life becomes a good tool to educate the designs of things. When we kicked off Infinite and the Academy, I was coaching my youngest son’s soccer team at the time. This helped my brain organize how you prepare the players for the big match. We discussed how Academy was like a practice session; giving players drills to focus on their individual skills (Weapon Drills), give them tools to safely experiment with their learnings (Training Mode), and chances to work together as a team and scrimmage without the stress of a “real game” (players vs. Bot Arena). 

David Ellis: Initially we thought about shipping another drill type in lieu of Weapon Drills, but when we tested the game with players across a greater variety of skill levels, we recognized that just about every player could aim and shoot. So, one player might fully engage just gaining familiarity with aiming and shooting (later moving while aiming and shooting) while players with more experience are more likely to enjoy Weapon Drills on another level by perfecting their runs and sharing high scores online with friends. Ultimately, we decided to prioritize features that were critical for onboarding new players while also providing opportunities for a greater variety of player skills to enjoy.

Since Academy is filled with firsts for the Halo franchise, there must have been some challenges when designing and building it. What was one particularly tough obstacle that the team had to overcome when creating these experiences?

Sara Stern: It took us some time to find the right balance between experiences that promoted learning and experiences that were fun. We had early prototypes that reinforced sandbox mechanics and explained them to players, but felt really flat when you played them. We had other prototypes that leaned so far into “fun” gimmicks that they reinforced gameplay behaviors that would get you in trouble if they carried over into PvP.

David Ellis: Being a “downstream team” from other core foundational teams we’ve had to be agile to make sure Academy content represents the game we’re shipping. The Tutorial itself pulls so many elements together from across the game we regularly keep tabs on items and features as development progresses to ensure we’re aligned with the rest of the game.

--To read the rest of this blog post, please head over to Halo Waypoint.

The next Halo Infinite multiplayer preview is targeted to arrive on September 24! All fully registered Halo Insider profiles as of September 13 are eligible to participate.



Don’t miss your chance! Head to aka.ms/HaloInsider, get your profile fully filled out, then prepare for takeoff.

Welcome back, Halo Insiders! Now that the team has had a chance to process the feedback we received during last month's Halo Infinite Multiplayer Technical Preview it's time to unpack it all with the community. In this blog, we're going to be taking a closer look at the overall key areas of feedback, or themes, we received from the Tech Preview along with the perspectives, or outcomes, from many of the teams working on the game. While this list may not be 100% exhaustive with every single piece of player feedback, it does represent the most common trending topics we observed via forum posts, social media, video content, and official Insider surveys.

[Click here to get the image in 4K]
Our goal is to provide transparent follow-up to share the team's response and perspective so players understand what to expect. While some of these feedback topics do have implications involving actual bugs, it's not the intent of this blog to address issues reported via the Halo Insider Support site. Overall, most of the more common and egregious bugs reported during the Technical Preview either already were – or have since – been addressed and we're excited to see many of these improvements roll out in our next public preview. In particular, we know there were a few pain points regarding Halo Waypoint messages and the Xbox Insider app on console at the start and teams have been working on improving these areas before our next flight.

Before we jump into the specific outcomes for key feedback it's important to note where we are on this journey together. Season One for Halo Infinite's free-to-play Multiplayer is launching on December 8 and as you've heard, the team is currently in "shut down mode" focused on bug squashing and polishing. In general, we have three possible outcomes for a given piece of feedback – the item has already been addressed, the item will be investigated and addressed later as possible, or the item in question is behaving as intended and no change is warranted. As you'll read below, the vast majority of outcomes for the Tech Preview feedback falls into one of the first two categories with really only one or two items falling into the bucket of "working as intended." This means that overall, the team's goals and ambitions largely align with those of our players in terms of areas we'd like to see improved or expanded. As we kick off this service and the next chapter of our journey together in a few months, it's important to remind everyone that from our perspective, launch is only the beginning! We can't act on everything everyone wants as quickly as everyone would like but we're committed and eager to improve and evolve the game together over time.

Now, without further ado, let's dive into the key player feedback themes from the Tech Preview and responses from applicable teams around the studio. We're going to tackle this alphabetically by team, starting with our colleagues working on Accessibility.

• Positive: Friend or Foe Outlines
  
• Positive: Full Controller and Keyboard & Mouse remapping
  
• Feedback: Desire for an auto-sprint option
  
• Feedback: Desire to alter the colors of the Damage System Color and Mark System
  

[h3]ACCESSIBILITY TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
The Friend and Foe (IFF) system's outlines are a key component of making Halo multiplayer more accessible. As iconic as the Red vs Blue system is, players with colorblindness were always left at a disadvantage in previous titles. We're pleased to see this feature helped so many players out during the Tech Preview. The Sandbox team should have more to share about IFF further below! While we believe that full controller and keyboard/mouse remapping is great for all players to allow for more player choice and customization, we're specifically excited about how these settings allow players with disabilities to remove barriers that previously existed with a limited set of control schemes. We wanted this title to be fully compatible with the Adaptive controller on Xbox as well. We're really excited to involve our community in working on improving accessibility. Two pieces of feedback we saw from the flight were to add a "auto-sprint" option so that players don't have to hold the thumbstick forward, which can be difficult and even painful when sprinting longer distances. The other feedback item was to have the colors of the "Damage System Color" and marks from the Mark System have their own color options in settings similar to the IFF colors. We agree and we love these suggestions, and although we won't be able to get them in for launch, we're already tracking them for future accessibility additions post-launch. [Click here to get the image in 4K]
[h2]MUSIC[/h2]

• Positive: Players loved both menu and Multiplayer music
  

[h3]AUDIO TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
We literally love to hear this. We're bringing a fresh style approach for our Multiplayer Modes on Infinite by combining Halo melodies with the post rock genre. We're very pleased to hear that our community loves this new approach, and we can't wait for you to hear even more (yes, there is a lot more) of what is in store for both Campaign and Multiplayer Modes.
[h2]IN-GAME AUDIO[/h2]

• Positive: Weapons sounded powerful and really added to the experience
  
• Feedback: Players wanted the Needler's audio to sound more "crystalized"
  
• Feedback: Granular controls of each in-game voice (Personal AI, Spartan Chatter, Multiplayer Announcer)
  

[h3]AUDIO TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
The Audio Team has spent a lot of time to deliver impactful gun sounds in a clear soundscape to make the combat experience more fun and immersive, so we're very excited to find many words like "impactful," "satisfying," or "crisp." We also brought back some of the classic Halo sounds such as Shield recharge and Plasma Pistol Charge, and we're glad that many players enjoyed it. On the other hand, we did see some players pointing out that a couple of the weapons feel like they are too far from the legacy sounds. Some players wanted more of a "crystallized" and "glassy" feel on the Needler for example. Thank you for the honest and constructive feedback, we are continuing to iterate on the sound design for the Needler and Plasma Pistol (Primary Fire) along with enhancing the Gravity Hammer sound now. We're preparing to deliver "in-progress version" of these new sounds for next public flight, so we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts on these updates in the next round. Players also expressed interest in having more granular controls for what sounds they hear in-game, especially when it comes to the various in-game voices. We won't get that granularity until after launch, but we and the Multiplayer Team agree with exposing this option to the player. They'll have a little more to say about this in their section below as well. Needler render courtesy of the upcoming Halo Encyclopedia [Click here to get the image in 4K]
[h2]BATTLE PASS & CHALLENGES[/h2]

• Positive: Players are still enjoying the idea of a permanent Battle Pass
  
• Feedback: Are Challenges the only way to progress?
  
• Feedback: Double XP Boost timer counting down while in menus
  

[h3]LIVE TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
During the Tech Preview we wanted to test the functionality of our Battle Pass, which leverages our Challenge system’s services. This Battle Pass was not a full Season Battle Pass but rather a much smaller one designed specifically for this flight. From a technical perspective, we discovered that there was a misconfiguration in our Challenge offering, which eventually prevented new Challenges from popping up to players after they completed others. This was not intended and should be addressed before the next flight. From a player feedback perspective, we heard the requests to earn XP per-match outside of Challenges as well as to have XP Boost timers only count down while in a match. One of the items that wasn’t fully there in the Tech Preview was our Daily Challenge model that provides Challenges along the lines of “Play X Number of Games” that will repeat throughout the day. These Challenges are replaced after completion and provide a regular XP drop for your Battle Pass just for playing matches and having fun during your sessions with Halo Infinite. The Weekly Challenges are where you will see your more specific challenges that you might recognize from other games; for example, “Get 10 kills with a Battle Rifle.” There is significantly greater depth with the Weekly Challenges than you saw in the Tech Preview that we will go through in the future. As for the XP boost timers counting down while out of a match, we will be looking at improving this experience post launch. Progression is an area that we will continue to improve and grow over time, and we’ll have even more to share here later this month.
[h2]BOTS & BOT ARENA[/h2]

• Positive: Bots were intelligent, fun, and challenging
  
• Positive: Bot Arena is a safe environment to learn. Very helpful for learning the layout and flow of maps
  
• Feedback: Bots were too accurate when shooting weapons and throwing grenades
  
• Feedback: Bots all went the same way to start, could get confused while moving on the map, and didn't use equipment enough
  
• Feedback: Spartan Bots weren't much better than ODST Bots and players wanted them to be difficult
  

[h3]MULTIPLAYER TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
The reception to Bots was amazing and almost overwhelming. We were so happy to see our bot combatants land so well with the community, but we recognize there are elements we can make even better. We'll be toning back those perfectly placed grenade bounces at lower difficulty levels because they were more accurate than we'd like. We're also looking into tweaking the gunfire accuracy a little bit, but not too far to avoid making Bots too easy (especially when a fourth, less challenging "Recruit" difficulty already exists, but wasn't in the Tech Preview). Players also noted that Bot behavior was not always in line with their expectations in a couple of areas. A common issue people were running into were the initial routes bots were taking off of spawn. While this led to some amazing clips of the bot teams getting wiped early, this was something we knew about going into the flight and we already have some extra logic in the works to help break them up a bit more and perform more like a squad of players would. We also heard feedback of players wishing the Bots were more effective with equipment. This will be an ongoing area of improvements for them. Replicating all the bonkers behaviors players are capable of pulling off with the equipment is a nearly impossible but we'll continue improving how they replicate player actions with the tools in the sandbox. Another note was that Bots could get "confused" and stop moving mid-combat. These bugs happen for a wide variety of reasons and is something we are continuing to improve as we push to release. We've resolved a lot of the big ones and will continue to iron out other issues with their movement as they arise. They'll only get better over time! Lastly, we've heard the desire to have Bots that are even more difficult than our Spartan Bots. There were definitely some tuning off with Spartan Bots that made them underperform, but they are still meant to be training partners – not esports pros. While teaching players is our primary goal of Bots, it would be fair to say in the future we want some bots that are maybe less sparing partners and more fight night contenders. [Click here to get the image in 4K]
[h2]WEAPON DRILLS[/h2]

• Positive: Provided a great environment for learning weapons
  
• Positive: Players had fun and enjoyed sharing their Weapon Drill scores
  
• Feedback: Desire to teach alt-fire modes more clearly
  
• Feedback: Some wanted a way swap between Weapon Drills more easily
  
• Feedback: Some players wanted untimed Weapon Drills
  
• Feedback: Many Players wanted Equipment and Movement Drills
  

[h3]MULTIPLAYER TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
Weapon Drills, similar to Bots, were a new addition to the multiplayer experience for this game. It was cool to see the community engaging with the feature; learning the toys and pushing their skills. Improved teaching about alt-fire modes? Yup, we agree. We are going to be doing a pass on the information in the quick tips to better explain the elements of the different weapons in each drill. Post-launch we are already investigating options to better explain the nuances of each weapon in the drills. Swapping between different weapons is something we plan on working with our UXUI team post launch to find ways to reduce friction there. There's also another Academy feature called Training Mode that will be in our next flight that will let players quickly swap their loadouts (via in-game menu) that will provide another avenue for players to be able to experiment with weapons (and more) while fighting bots in maps. Untimed Weapon Drills? Yep, already slated in our post-release list. Drills for Equipment & Movement? Post-launch we are plotting various drills for a lot of other mechanics such as grenades, melee weapons, equipment, and vehicles. Basically, we want drills to let players test everything in the sandbox. It's reassuring to hear the community enjoyed Weapon Drills so much that they wanted more of just about every aspect of them. Rest assured, we'll continue to deliver that "more" here during the lifetime of the game.
[h2]COMBAT SENSOR (RADAR)[/h2]

• Feedback: Some liked the Combat Sensor, though most found it confusing
  
• Feedback: Some wanted height indicators as well
  

[h3]MULTIPLAYER TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
The Combat Sensor, or radar, that sits in the bottom left of your HUD followed a different set of rules than previous Halo titles. It only displayed enemies when they were sprinting or shooting, which was more in line with Halo 5's "Threat Tracker." We knew that this implementation was going to feel different, maybe even a little contentious, and that's why we wanted to get feedback on it as soon as possible in the Tech Preview. While some appreciated the new approach, we found that most players missed the old properties in these social matches. We've updated the Combat Sensor to feel more like the "Motion Tracker" of old, which shows all movement besides crouch-walking, and should have that ready for folks to test in the next flight. Be sure to keep an eye on it and let us know how it plays! [Click here to get the image in 4K]
[h2]PERSONAL AI[/h2]

• Positive: People loved having their own Personal AI for the first time
  
• Positive: People loved customizing their Personal AI
  
• Feedback: Desire for more customization options (separate voice from body, more shapes, more voices, more colors)
  
• Feedback: Desire to preview a Personal AI's voice and personality in the lobby
  
• Feedback: Desire to increase the variety of their lines
  
• Feedback: Desire to control how much the Personal AI talks (including turn them off)
  

[h3]MULTIPLAYER TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
When the Tech Preview launched and everyone started sharing their Personal AI, it was a blast to see which one everyone picked. We love them all and it was great to see the different personalities resonating with each of you. As the flight progressed throughout the weekend though, we started to see themes and feedback emerge about their current implementation. Luckily, most of the feedback centered on a desire to have more control and customization of the Personal AI experience. In terms of more customization, we're looking to support different models for the Personal AI as well as different customization options to make them more personalized from the core shapes such as hats, props, etc. We also plan to continue to expand the roster of AI over time and have a few in for launch that the world hasn't seen yet. We agree that previewing a Personal AI's voice and personality before you take them on the battlefield just makes sense. Fortunately, we've already been working on this, and it should be in our next flighting build so be sure to test it out in the lobby beforehand! There was also feedback around the same lines popping up repeatedly, and we agree. After the Tech Preview, we looked at the frequency of Personal AI lines (as well as Spartan Chatter lines like "Over Yonder!") and have already made adjustments to reduce how often they are repeated. This work should be reflected in the next flight. We're also interested in adding additional line variants for each AI post-launch to keep their lines from becoming too repetitive. Lastly, players expressed an interest in controlling how often their Personal AI spoke and what kind of information they spoke about. This isn't something we'd be able to do for launch, but we'd like to give more control to players over the frequency of flavor lines as well as increase/decrease informational lines, such as weapon pickup lines. This has a lot of benefit for players wanting more to help make the game more accessible to them or even to just turn different types of feedback off all up.
[h2]MEDALS[/h2]

• Positive: New medal events such as Ninja, 360, and Bank Shot were loved
  
• Positive: Players loved that certain medals get called out in the event feed
  
• Feedback: Many players were worried about the size, placement, and art style of the medals
  

[h3]MULTIPLAYER & UXUI TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
We were glad to hear that the Medal events, especially the ones that get called out in the event feed, were received so well. However, we can't talk about Medals and not acknowledge the feedback and chatter about the overall appearance of them in the game. A lot of the focus was the size, placement, and overall art style. We agree that there is more work to be done here and we'll be going after what we can before launch. We are also doing a revision now that preserves our difficulty tiering (colors) and iconography, but nudges the visual treatment towards a more classic Halo skeuomorphic Medal design. You may not see these new "metal-fied" Medals in the next flight, but we're pushing to get them in for launch. [Click here to get the image in 4K]
[h2]FRIEND OR FOE RECOGNITION (PLAYER OUTLINES)
[/h2]

• Pro: Accessibility and customization options
  
• Feedback: Impacted shield (and Overshield) readability
  
• Feedback: Desire for more options, including the ability to turn them off
  
• Feedback: Desire to have an opponent's gamertag appear above their head
  

[h3]SANDBOX TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
Going into the Tech Preview we really wanted to get feedback on our Friend or Foe (IFF) system, so we were happy to hear everyone's thoughts online and in our surveys. Considering this was one of our larger changes in the game, we were delighted to hear that the increased accessibility and player expression landed as well as it did. It wasn't perfect though, and we know it. We've already made significant FX changes to better communicate the health of a target. You should always know if you're fighting a player who has an Overshield, full shields, weakened shields, or broken shields. You'll be able to see these improvements in our next flight. As for more options, such as turning outlines off entirely, we'll need to explore how realistic this is given our timelines for launch. We're always in favor of providing more options to our players, but it's very likely we won't be able to provide this until after launch.

A common note was to have player's Gamertag's appear above their head when looking at them. We completely agree and can confirm that names weren't showing up due to a bug. A few of you noticed that we had an option to display Gamertag or Service Tag in game, but it just wasn't working in this build. This fix may or may not make it into our next flight, but it will be in for launch.
[h2]AIMING[/h2]

• Feedback: Performance impacting aim
  
• Feedback: Some felt the default sensitivity was too low
  
• Feedback: Desire for Axial deadzone controls
  
• Note: Confusion around zoom/smart scope
  

[h3]SANDBOX TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
Aiming, similar to IFF, was another area we really wanted to dive into with the Tech Preview. While we know performance in this build wasn't great and impacted aiming, we still received tons of valuable input from all you. The data and feedback from the Tech Preview has directly informed decisions and improvements we've made to aiming. First, we've increased the default sensitivities for both M&K and controller players, including while zoomed in on weapons with 5x scopes and above. Second, we have since exposed Axial Deadzones controls in the settings. You should see these improvements, as well as performance increases, in the next flight.

A last note here was that there was confusion around the zoom function on weapons without scopes. Many of you were curious if it changed a weapon's aiming traits or increased its effectiveness at range, similar to Halo 5's Smart Scope. That is not the case for unscoped weapons in Halo Infinite. Similar to many previous Halo titles, scoped weapons will have benefits due to their scopes but unscoped weapons will perform the same regardless of its zoom state. Players will see a decrease in FOV, but no there is no underlying change to these weapons when zoomed in.
[h2]WEAPONS[/h2]

• Positive: Overall weapon balance felt great
  
• Positive: Ability to drop weapons is appreciated
  
• Feedback: S7 Sniper & Skewer were difficult to use
  
• Split Feedback: Hammer feels too strong but also too slow
  

[h3]SANDBOX TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
The positive reception of the overall weapon balance was great to see. We will continue to tune the weapons throughout the lifetime of the game and this work is never really "done." We were also happy to see so many of you enjoyed having the ability to drop/toss a weapon to a teammate without needing to find a weapon to swap out for first.

The two weapons we saw the most chatter about were the S7 Sniper and Skewer, with a focus on how difficult it was to aim while scoped in. The performance and aiming improvements mentioned above should help here, but we'll also be tuning some of the aiming on the S7 Sniper for this next flight and look forward to hearing your feedback on it. Lastly, we saw the Gravity Hammer get a lot of attention on Recharge. Some players enjoyed that it had its own unique role in the sandbox and "wasn't just another Sword," but others felt the change made it too slow. Overall, the feedback for this weapon was split down the middle between it being too effective and not effective enough. As a result, we don't plan on making any major changes, but we'll continue to monitor it.
[h2]MOVEMENT[/h2]

• Positive: Sprint's balance was positively received
  
• Split Feedback: Players wanted it to feel smoother movement, and less warping
  
• Note: Screenshake was too much, even when turned off in settings
  

[h3]SANDBOX TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
Movement, with Sprint in particular, has been a hot topic in Halo for quite some time now. In Halo Infinite we took a different approach to balancing it. We're happy that the current speed and balance is playing well, but rest assured we'll always be keeping a close eye on movement. While we did see some players say the movement was smooth, there were also some players that noted that it felt clunky. We've seen this feedback come in due to the movement itself or as a result of warping during online matches. We're constantly improving our network model to reduce warping, and we'll continue to monitor this feedback as that work continues. And, for the players who noticed that screenshake was present even after setting it to "0," don't worry – that was a bug. It should be smooth sailing in the next flighting build.
[h2]EQUIPMENT[/h2]

• Positive: Grappleshot was loved by all
  
• Feedback: Drop Wall felt too slow and too weak
  

[h3]SANDBOX TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
We're thrilled to hear players are enjoying our take on equipment in Halo Infinite so far. We saw incredible Grappleshot plays during the Tech Preview weekend and we can't wait to see what you're able to pull off in the next one. One consistent piece of feedback we saw around equipment was that many players felt the Drop Wall wasn't effective enough given its current tuning. The intent behind this delay was to make it a piece of equipment that we use proactively when preparing for engagements, rather than reactive once a fight has already broken out. We also didn't want to make it too durable, causing players to always win when they used a Drop Wall in a fight. It's meant to cause a slight "wrinkle" in the fight, not manufacture a full stop in the combat loop. That said, we have reduced the Drop Wall's deployment time. We're taking a closer look at the durability, but want to assess how the faster deployment impacts gameplay before committing to increasing the health of its panels just yet. This update should be reflected in the next flight, so please keep an eye out for it and let us know what you think. [Click here to get the image in 4K]
[h2]HUD[/h2]

• Positive: HUD clean/streamline approach was appreciated
  
• Feedback: Some felt the weapon cradle was small
  
• Feedback: Inability to see second grenade type
  
• Feedback: Some would like HUD customization options
  

[h3]UXUI TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
Feedback around the HUD was interesting to read. Some players loved the new streamlined look, some wanted a more classic design, but most seemed not to mind as long as it was doing its job.

We agree that the weapon cradle in the bottom right of your screen did seem a little small. We will be exploring improvements to help make sure it is more legible at a glance post-launch.

There was also good feedback about not being able to see your secondary grenade type. The team agrees that this information is extremely valuable, especially in the heat of battle. This UI change will land in a future update.

Anytime we change things in Halo, there are always some players who want the option to keep things the way they used to be. The HUD is no different. This feedback was expected, we saw tons of fan mock-ups, and we agree with providing more HUD customization options down the road. It's not something we can pursue for launch, but it is something we're interested in continuing to evolve over the lifetime of the game.
[h2]MENUS[/h2]

• Positive: Overall presentation received positive feedback
  
• Feedback: Scrolling in customization
  
• Feedback: Customization items were difficult to equip
  

[h3]UXUI TEAM RESPONSE[/h3]
It was great to see people sharing pictures of their Spartans hanging out by the Pelican while waiting in the lobby. It was also good to see players navigating the entire game, without limitation, while searching for matches.

That said, we did notice that there was plenty of feedback around the Customization menu in particular. We saw a desire to have vertical navigation or a grid layout similar to Halo 5 instead of horizontal scrolling. We also had many players call out that the flow to ‘equip' customization elements was not as smooth as they would have liked.

There were some bugs impacting these menus, such as "equip" not always equipping items, but we recognize there's room for improvement in the overall Customization presentation. While the current layout will be what you see at launch, it will continuously evolve with each season. [Click here to get the image in 4K]
Thank you again to everyone who participated and took time to share feedback during Halo Infinite's first Multiplayer Technical Preview!

Partnering with Halo Insiders to playtest and gather feedback is a critical part of our development process that began in the early days of the Master Chief Collection updates and will continue even beyond the launch of Halo Infinite. For more insights into Halo Infinite flighting and Multiplayer, be sure to check out our Inside Infinite blog series.

If you want to join us for our next Halo Infinite flight, which will feature 4v4 Arena and Big Team Battle, be sure to register for the Halo Insider program! And, if you're already registered, it never hurts to quickly double check your profile to ensure everything is complete and verified – remember you can update your preferences and/or opt-out out any time.

As a reminder, Halo Infinite multiplayer is free to play on Xbox and PC and we just opened up pre-orders for our most expansive Campaign yet. You can play them both later this year when they launch on December 8, 2021.

Thanks for reading and we hope to see you in our next multiplayer preview!

Welcome to the latest edition of Inside Infinite – the blog series where we sit down with the teams hard at work building Halo Infinite, to give you more insight into our process and goals than ever before.

This month you’re joining us fresh off the heels of Gamescom, where we had the opportunity to reveal our launch date of December 8, 2021, along with the Xbox Series X – Halo Infinite Limited Edition Bundle, the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 – Halo Infinite Limited Edition, and of course - our Multiplayer Season 1 Cinematic Intro, where you'll meet Spartan Commander Agryna:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
This time around we’ve got a lot to cover, thanks to the Multiplayer and Bots Teams. But, we’d be remiss if we didn’t kick off the blog with a quick word on the most recent Technical Preview, directly from the folks you heard talk to it on the stream.

If this is your first time checking out an Inside Infinite, we’re glad to have you! And, when you get the time, we’d highly recommend checking out our previous editions, to hear directly from the teams building the next chapter of Halo:

• December 2020 – Art, Graphics, and Live
• January 2021 – Sandbox
• February 2021 – Campaign
• March 2021 – Audio
• April 2021 – PC
• June 2021 – Live and Waypoint vNext
• July 2021 – Flighting

Now, it’s time to dive on in. First up, we’ll hear from the folks that introduced you to the Tech Preview during our overview stream, then the Multiplayer Team chats with us in-depth for their goals when designing Halo Infinite, and after that you’ll hear from the Bots Team to learn all about their process, and why their creations can throw grenades so well.

Now, without further ado...


A scant few weeks back, from Thursday July 29th to August 2nd, Halo Insiders jumped onto the very first publicly available servers for Halo Infinite as a part of the Technical Preview – a chance for us to kick the tires of our backend systems, and a chance for you to put Halo Infinite through its paces. To preface the entire event, we ran a live stream that provided all the finer details of what was in the build, showed you some live gameplay across Xbox One and Xbox Series X – and, of course, a chance to hear from some of the folks that are working on the game itself. For those that missed the full stream, it can be viewed right here:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
You all took the assignment very seriously and piled in to help us out, by slaying as many Bots as you possibly could. For those that are hungry for an after-action report, here’s a look back at the carnage:



A quick rundown of the carnage from the Halo Infinite Tech Preview. [To download the above image in full res, click here.]

Sam Hanshaw, Jerry Hook, and Tom French all sat down with us on-stream to talk through some of what they were most excited for during the Tech Preview – speaking to flighting, overall design, and multiplayer respectively. We were able revisit them here on the tail end of the preview, to hear a bit more about what excited them the most, what caught them off-guard, and any other tidbits that they were interested in circling back on:

[h3]With this being the first public flight for Halo Infinite, how did it go from your perspective as a Producer for the Live Team? What caught you off guard or surprised you?[/h3]
Sam Hanshaw, Live Team Producer: Maybe an unpopular answer but the biggest successes for me were the problems we hit while delivering this flight. I want to say a big thank you to everyone who experienced problems during the flight and stuck with it, with special appreciation for the folks who submitted support tickets to highlight bugs they found

I know a lot of people had problems connecting to matches, and we were surprised that some people couldn’t play matches at all. But that’s why we flight, y’all out there who joined us brought so many new hardware configurations to our testing, new network conditions, and of course the simple scale of testing that we needed. The biggest things we worry about aren’t the things that happen to 5% of players, we can usually find and address those issues. The worst are the ones that happen to one player in one thousand. So that’s why we invited hundreds of thousands of you to play, and I’m thrilled that you showed up and helped us find those one in one thousand bugs.

[h3]From your perspective as Head of Design and someone working closely with the Live and Customization Teams, what’s your take on our first Tech Preview? How’d it go, and were there any particular surprises or unexpected outcomes?[/h3]
Jerry Hook, Head of Design: It was great to hear and see the excitement over our first taste of customization content being shown in the Technical Preview. The love for our prosthetics, the investments for players to customize their Spartan’s look, and our new Personal AI systems seem to have landed very positively with our players. It is always great to hear a call for more at this early stage of the game, even before we release. Also, I saw lots of love for being able to earn items outside the Battle Pass, since earned gear is not just focused on one track or activity. We did have some issues however with our challenge system in the Tech Preview, so I want to make sure to clarify some of those details:

• First off, I want to correct my own language when discussing the Battle Pass all-up. In our live stream I stated that the Battle Pass system will always have free and paid rewards available at each tier, this statement is incorrect for our launch Battle Pass. Our goal is to still provide great value to players for their time spent playing Halo, whether they choose to go the premium route by purchasing the Battle Pass, or by unlocking the incremental Battle Pass items that are available for free. So, while there isn't a free reward at every tier, there will be numerous free rewards to acquire across the entirety of a season's Battle Pass. (And yes, we are still allowing you keep your Battle Passes once the season is over – they will not expire.)
  
• Our challenge system had some issues in the preview that hit a few players and prevented forward progress on their Battle Pass. Our first issue was that we failed to cull the challenge decks of challenges that could not be completed with Bot-only matches. This caused players to get blocked behind these challenges and is not our intent for launch.
  
• We also missed some tuning for our daily challenges that caused them to not to refresh. This also caused players to get blocked as they would run out of daily challenges.
  
• Lastly, we just wanted everyone to remember that for the Technical Preview we had expedited XP earn rates to help players get through the pass in the short window for the preview.
  

Using challenges, our goal is that you will always be earning progress in your Battle Pass through playing and winning matches. This will allow you to always jump into a game of Halo and make progress on your goals.

[h3]Having now seen a huge pool of players dive in and kick the tires of the Tech Preview, what are your thoughts as the Multiplayer Associate Creative Director? Did anything happen that surprised you? Anything that hasn’t happened within the walls of a 343 playtest lab?[/h3]
Tom French, Multiplayer Associate Creative Director: I definitely saw players do some crazy things with the Equipment (particularly the Grappleshot) that I’d yet to see in our playtests! It’s one of the joys about building a game where the core is so centered around a sandbox that empowers a lot of player creativity like ours. I think giving players first “hands-on-stick” time against Bots reduced some of the pressure of fighting players in Arena and let everyone experiment with the inputs a lot. Our Sandbox Team has done an amazing job building a suite of mechanics that lets players express themselves and our job as the Multiplayer Team is to build modes, maps, and systems that facilitate ways of drawing players together to create interesting conflicts. It’s going to be fascinating to see all the ways people will use all the toys we give them to play with at launch and see what they do when we introduce new ones into the mix to change things up over the life of Infinite!

Thank you, Sam, Tom, and Jerry for jumping back in to chat with us one more time! And to those of you that want to make sure you’re on board next time we’re prepare to flight – ensure that your Halo Insider profile fully filled out, you’re opted in to communications, and that you have your DxDiag uploaded (if you’re on PC). Then, we’ll reach out once we’ve got something new on the way.


Now that you’ve had a chance to see (and for some of you, to play) an early look at Halo Infinite’s multiplayer, it’s time to hear a bit more from the team building the backbone behind every experience in Halo Infinite’s free-to-play multiplayer experience. Back during our multiplayer reveal we chatted with a few of these folks in the Halo Infinite Multiplayer Overview, but now seems like a fitting time to circle back and chat with them once more.

A Spartan with the VK78 Commando. [To download the above image in full res, click here.]

[h3]Hello there, Multiplayer Team! Who are you and what do you do here at 343 Industries?[/h3]

Tom French, Multiplayer Associate Creative Director: Yo! I’m Tom French. I’m responsible for overseeing our Multiplayer Design Team and shepherding the Multiplayer vision of Halo Infinite.

Andrew Witts, Lead Multiplayer Designer: Hey, everyone! My name is Andrew Witts and I am the Lead Multiplayer Designer on Halo Infinite. My team and I work on things like Game Modes and systems such as Personal AI, the Mark System, Item Spawners, Medals, and more!

Cayle George, Lead Multiplayer Level Designer: My name is Cayle George and I wrangle all things maps for Multiplayer. Our talented Level Designers and I are responsible for creating all the exciting levels and combat arenas in Halo Infinite’s Multiplayer experience.

Alex Bean, Multiplayer Designer: Hey all, my name is Alex Bean. I’m a Multiplayer Designer working on features including Personal AI, Item Spawners, Death Cam/Spectate, Match Flow, the Mark System, and Medals. I also had a hand in designing a few maps.

Patrick Wren, Senior Multiplayer Designer: Hello everyone! My name is Patrick Wren and I am a Senior Multiplayer Designer working on the voice-over systems and partnering with Alex on Personal AI. I have also been designing in-map systems like the Pelican Delivery System.

David Ellis, Senior Multiplayer Designer: Hi everyone! I’m David Ellis, and I am a Senior Multiplayer Designer on Halo Infinite. I’m focused on helping delivery the Academy suite of features which includes our Tutorial, Weapon Drills and Training Mode.

Sara Stern, Multiplayer Bots Designer: I’m Sara Stern and I’m a Multiplayer Designer working on Halo Infinite. I’m primarily focused on developing the multiplayer Bots, although I’ve also worked on the Tutorial for the Academy.

[h3]When approaching Halo Infinite’s multiplayer, what were some of your most crucial design pillars?[/h3]
Tom French: There were three Multiplayer wide pillars we established early in development that still hold really true to what we are today:

• The Player Spartan is Halo Canon – We want players to feel invested in their Spartans and part of that is making them be part of the bigger Halo universe. This led to the world wanting to feel more grounded to reduce “game-y-ness” without compromising gameplay.
  
• Extensibility at the Core – Modes, systems, and everything we built for Infinite to be modular and expandable over the lifespan of the game. This enables us to recontextualize parts of one game mode quickly to stand-up new mode prototypes for future Seasons. The long-term benefit is this also helps us extend this beyond our internal team and into our community development tools by exposing these various components through Forge and Custom Games settings to empower the community to build more content that feels more “real” alongside things built by our team at 343.
  
• Always Onboarding – Playing online is intimidating for many and difficult to master. It was important for us to develop an evergreen onramp of features into online play that we refer to the Academy. Starting with the Tutorial, players start their journey; joining the ranks as a Halo Spartan to learn the basic mechanics. Through additional features like Weapon Drills, Training Mode, and the Players vs. Bot playlist, players always have fun and “safe” ways to practice and explore Infinite before they’re ready to jump in boot-first into matchmaking.
  

Andrew Witts: The design pillars are different based on our two big experiences: Arena (4v4) and Big Team Battle (12v12). We created different pillars because we felt that they had design goals based on player expectations. For the purposes of this blog, we’ll focus on the Arena, and we’ll save Big Team Battle for next time!
The design pillars for Arena are:

• Fair Starts – Players start the match as equals with balanced gameplay mechanics.
  
• The Lone Wolf Survives but the Pack Thrives – Players can achieve individually through skill expression, but the team with better coordination, communication, and reactivity will seize the most victories.
  
• Mastery = Mechanical Depth + Tactical Decision-making – A match with two teams of equal skill should be determined by the team’s tactical decision making as the game mode’s state is altered by player action.
  
• Game Mode Clarity – The modes in Halo Infinite’s Arena communicate their game states efficiently and urgently to bolster the tactical decision-making required for a player’s path to mastery over the Arena experience.
  
• Power is Earned and Impermanent – Scavenging pushes teams to contest the acquisition of items within the Halo sandbox. Any item that can be earned can also be taken away through combat resolution, positioning, and tactical actions.
  

An exterior view of Live Fire, a map for Halo Infinite. [To download the above image in full res, click here.]

[h3]It’s been a few weeks since the Halo Infinite Tech Preview closed its proverbial doors. What’s been on your plate since that weekend of testing concluded?[/h3]

Tom French: There hasn’t really been any time to stop, we’re always thinking about the next target ahead of us on the road to launching Infinite. The next big thing is getting our upcoming preview dialed in and buttoned up for players to dig into; grinding down all the little details we can to make sure the game delivers on the gameplay we’ve been working on all this time. It’s equal parts exciting, terrifying, and exhausting all at once!

Andrew Witts: I’ve mainly been going through all the data that we’ve received from all our feedback channels. The team has been spending a lot of time celebrating the positive ‘heartbeats’ on some features and coming up with solutions to some of the improvement areas we’ve identified based on player feedback.

Since then, the world has really had a chance to sink its teeth into every single frame of the gameplay they’ve come across. Did the community pick up on anything that surprised you?

Andrew Witts: I’m surprised at how fast the community found all the Halo references we put into the experience so far. (There’s more!) I also really enjoyed the players’ reactions to the more flavorful lines from the Personal AI that play when players do something particularly awesome.

Patrick Wren: I was really surprised by how evenly distributed each Personal AI was a favorite to someone. While I enjoy them all for different reasons, I had no idea how much each one would resonate, but it was great to see them all get love.

Alex Bean: I had a blast watching the community happen upon new Medals. We put a lot of work into a suite of Medals that would complement the game’s sandbox by telling the player, “Yes, you just did that!” It was great to see players discovering Medals that highlighted new mechanics (“Off the Rack”, “Deadly Catch”) as well as classic maneuvers (“Ninja”, “360”).

[h3]With the Spartan Academy and Bots being core features of Halo Infinite, how does that play into your multiplayer design philosophy? Does this open up any new opportunities?[/h3]

David Ellis: From day one a core axiom we’ve used for the Academy was to “Give players a safe space to learn how to Halo.” After 20 years there’s a lot of institutional knowledge in the franchise that, for more experienced players, is second nature and doesn’t require a second thought. We’re focused on ensuring all the modes, tools, etc., we create will allow any players – regardless of experience – to hone their Halo skills. We were gratified to see the community response to the slice of Weapon Drills in the recent Tech Preview and can’t wait till players get the opportunity to explore more facets of the Academy in the future.

Sara Stern: We don’t see playing against Bots as a separate experience from multiplayer, but rather a tool we can use to allow more people to have fun playing the game. We spent a lot of time working on making the Bot experience feel like playing against players, so that the skills you practice against Bots are skills you can use in regular matchmaking. Sometimes you also just want a little more control over how your multiplayer experience goes: if you’re new and trying to get the basics down, or an experienced player who had a long day and doesn’t want to fully lean forward, Bots are there to give you more options for how you play multiplayer.

Tom French: Bots originally started with the desire to give players something “safe” to learn against and backfill players in matches. They’re a core component to our Academy feature suite to support an “evergreen” way to onboard players into our gameplay. The Academy and playing our game modes is really just the beginning of what will be possible with them. Their presence affords us new tools to explore new game modes and UGC experiences not possible in previous Halo games.

[h3]When creating a cross-platform experience like Halo Infinite’s multiplayer, what are some of the biggest design considerations/design challenges? Or, balance challenges?[/h3]

Andrew Witts: Being cross-platform is super exciting for us in general. A particular challenge that we faced on the MP Team was around readability for new players in general. We looked at a lot of legacy designs and we tried to both modernize them as well as make them more accessible to new players without losing too much of their feel. An example of this is in our game mode design. For modes, we tried to add an additional level of clarity about what players should do off the rip with Personal AI “kick-off” lines that describe the mode in a concise manner. We’ve also added mode-specific scoreboards to many of our game modes in order to better explain game mode states to newcomers. This is the first time Halo has made completely unique scoreboards for modes and we’re excited to get some feedback on how they are functioning for our players when they see them in upcoming flights.

The MA40 Assault Rifle from Halo Infinite. [To download the above image in full res, click here.]

[h3]Expanding on the tried-and-true Halo experience seems like a mighty challenge to overcome. When looking at things like Personal AI, how do you add extra things into the margins without encroaching on the existing multiplayer formula?[/h3]

Alex Bean: We looked for opportunities to take existing features and give them a big “Halo” coat of paint. An example of this is with Personal AI. Halo 5 had a voice in your head that talked about incoming Power Weapons and players have always captured zones in modes like Strongholds by standing in them. But this is Halo, and you’re a Spartan! Instead, a Personal AI is now delivering that information and “hacking” zones, giving players their own Master Chief/Cortana dynamic within multiplayer. Another example is our approach to the camera in MP. Now at match start or when you die, the camera transitions to and from your helmet instead of simply cutting, just as it does in the Halo Infinite campaign. And when you spectate a teammate driving a Warthog, you’ll see the camera mounted to the vehicle much like a cutscene from Halo: Reach.

We also wanted to take mechanics that were hidden knowledge or skills and surface them to the greater player base. Inspired by the dynamic weapon racks featured in the original Halo 2 teaser (and later in the game’s opening mission), all items (weapons, grenades, etc.) now spawn from physical objects in the world, marking the location of the spawn and informing players of their remaining respawn time. Instead of only being able to call out “3 enemies, Top Mid” via voice chat, players can now Mark those enemies and communicate the same information.

Patrick Wren: When looking to expand the Halo experience, I look at how things can really punctuate what is already there. Like Alex said, the Personal AI was the desire to get that buddy informational experience that you get with Cortana in the Campaign. When talking about what that would look like and where the current state of the story is, the “Dumb AI” made a lot of sense to be the way to mass produce with Spartans and not be influenced by Cortana. It was important for us to give players a variety to choose from to dial in their Halo experience.

Player feedback is a critical element of our process – and, during the Tech Preview we had a solid amount of it. What are some of the bigger items the Multiplayer Team is working on now as a result of that?

Andrew Witts: One area of focus for me lately has been on analyzing player sentiment around what we’ve been calling the “Combat Sensor” or as everyone has been calling it, “Radar”. We knew that the implementation we had for the Tech Preview was going to feel different, maybe even a little contentious, which is why we wanted to get feedback on it as soon as possible. We’ve heard all the feedback and we have a new iteration that will be in the next preview which will be more in-line with players’ expectations.

Alex Bean: There was a healthy mixture of known bugs going into the flight and new surprises – the Match Intro camera operator had many 1,000 lbs. Spartans tumble in their direction. We’re actively trying to polish up those Match Flow issues. And while our Medal animations weren’t playing correctly in the Tech Preview, sentiment on Medal visuals has been heard and our UI team is investigating addressing some of that feedback. Lastly, it was helpful to see what resonated most with our players to inform areas of growth as we look beyond launch.

Patrick Wren: The feedback on the VO systems was greatly appreciated. You try and tune as much as you can in development, but there is nothing like seeing it in the wild to get the clear picture.

The biggest pain point we saw were some lines and events repeating more than expected for both Spartans and Personal AI. Spartans in particular really wanted to make sure you looked “Over Yonder.” We identified the biggest pain points and added a buffer so that the same events aren’t commented on over and over.

For Personal AI, the biggest request we saw was the ability to preview their voices. Good news, we have already had that for a bit and is primed and ready to go the next time you all get your hands on the game.

David Ellis: For Weapons Drills we’ve already added and adjusted a few items which should improve the experience for everyone. We heard you loud and clear (cough… Bulldog 3) and tweaked target ranges in a few drills so they don’t tread outside the intended range for too long. We also saw some opportunities to improve readability with targets and introduce new target behaviors so be on the lookout for those in the future.

Sara Stern: We identified a number of Bot behaviors we wanted to improve coming out of the Technical Preview, but two areas of focus for us have been rebalancing our difficulty tuning and improving how well Bots prioritize contesting powerful weapons on map. The difference between Spartan and ODST Bots should feel like a significant increase in difficulty, which wasn’t a target we hit in the Technical Preview build. They also ran in a pack to all try and get the same weapon at once – we're exploring solutions for getting them to spread out and search for weapon pickups without competing with one another.

[h3]What are some of your favorite parts of Halo Infinite’s Multiplayer? Anything that’s caught you off guard, personally?[/h3]

Tom French: I love how the game feels classic and modern at the same time. In a way it’s the fantasy of what you remember playing back in the day. You pick up the controller and the gameplay feels like getting to know an old friend again; they’ve changed and grown but the core of who they are is still there. The gameplay is very much indexing on classic Halo tropes of fair starts and map control, but with new twists and enhancements to make it feel more modern. You can Scan to find weapon locations, you can Mark enemies, weapons, etc., for teammates, and the world of the Player Spartan feels more cohesive in the larger Halo universe.

Andrew Witts: I have a lot of favorite things in Halo MP! I think what I’m most happy with is how everything feels authentically Halo. We spent a lot of time trying to really hone our features to meet player expectations not just in terms of their output gameplay-wise but also fantasy-wise. Everything must own up to the razor of “Is this Halo enough?” Using this razor helped us not only differentiate what makes Halo MP different from other free to play games but also own up to what our existing player-base expects from us.

David Ellis: I would regret it if I didn’t take this opportunity to give a shout out to the team responsible for bringing our vehicles to life in Halo Infinite. Nothing is more quintessentially Halo to me, than battling across of map when a buddy skids to a stop alongside and honks their horn for you to jump into their Warthog. There’s no way to predict the outcome in most Halo skirmishes, but if you’re in a Warthog there’s a very good chance cheers and/or laughter will ensue.

Patrick Wren: I love how we built our systems so we can really fine-tune and expand each experience. We can have a very tightly tuned competitive experience and have a much more dynamic experience in BTB. It makes me excited for the future and what the community does with these systems in Custom Games.

A Spartan goes into battle with the MA40 in Live Fire, a map for Halo Infinite. [To download the above image in full res, click here.]

Alex Bean: I’m surprised how good it feels to move and shoot in the game. The Sandbox Team made some great enhancements to how smooth and responsive the controls feel while preserving a Halo feel. And the weapons are a ton of fun – all my favorites are brand new for Infinite. Getting a “Perfect” with the VK78 Commando or nailing the “one, two, DEAD” firing cadence of the Mangler is immensely satisfying.

Thank you so much to the Multiplayer Team for taking some time to sit with us and talk through everything from design pillars, to what you enjoyed most from the Tech Preview! If you’re reading all of this and wish you could get in on the fun – worry not, it’s not too late! Sign-up to be a Halo Insider today, get your profile fully filled out, and if you’re on PC make sure you’ve got your DxDiag uploaded.

Up next, we get to hang out with Sara a bit more – along with a few more of her teammates over on the Bots Team, who recently had their hard work go head-to-head with Halo Insiders over the course of the Tech Preview weekend.


During our recent Tech Preview for Halo Infinite, the Bots took center stage. Over the course of the weekend players went toe-to-toe with Marine, ODST, and Spartan Bots – all of whom were busy putting players through the paces and landing some next-level grenades.

We had the chance to sit down with the Bots Team to hear more about their goals when they set out to make Bots in the first place, their process for how they’re able to build sentience from the ground-up – and, some of what excited them the most when they saw their hard work put on display against hundreds of thousands of Halo Insiders.

[h3]Hello there, Bots Team! It’s your turn to rock the mic - who are you, and what do you do here at 343 Industries?[/h3]

Brie Chin-Deyerle, Senior Lead Gameplay Engineer (she/her): Hi! I’m Brie, my pronouns are she/her, and I’m a Senior Gameplay Engineer with the Multiplayer Team. I’m currently the engineering lead for Academy and Bots, so a lot of my days are spent adding features, fixing bugs, and helping the team do their best work.

Sara Stern, Multiplayer Bots Designer (she/her): I’m Sara Stern and I’m a Multiplayer Designer. I’m primarily focused on developing the multiplayer Bots, although I’ve also worked on the Tutorial for the Academy.

Ilana Franklin, Gameplay Engineer (she/her): I’m Ilana Franklin. I’m a Gameplay Engineer on the Multiplayer Team, and I spend most of my time on Bots.

Hollis Lehv, Gameplay Engineer (she/her): I’m Hollis Lehv, and I am a Gameplay Engineer on the Multiplayer Team at 343. I have been working mostly on Bots!